


tarallucci e vino

by nirvhannahcornell (josiebelladonna)



Series: hamthrax sandwich [3]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom
Genre: Bad Girls - Freeform, Danny started the fire and Joey and Frankie are trying to put it out, Dark Comedy, Drinking Games, F/M, Food Issues, Food Kink, Food Porn, Food Sex, Gallows Humor, Hand Feeding, Hypnotism, Love Triangles, Mind Control, Mind Games, Pastries, Pining, Seduction, Seduction to the Dark Side, Sexual Roleplay, Sibling Incest, Slow Burn, Sugar Mama, Supernatural Elements, Switching, This ain't the parental kink you're lookin for champ, Unrequited Love, basically the equivalent of smoking meat, it's like a forest fire, the fanfic version of the Italian Job
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 14,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/nirvhannahcornell
Summary: The follow up to bon appetit."it all ends with biscuits and wine."“YOU'RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO BLOW THE DAMN DOORS OFF!”While Dan is feeling on top of the world with darling Valentina, the Italian gentlemen of the quintet are fighting the girls' spell, much to their chagrin. But there is a notch in every hard piece of armor as Frank and Joey soon figure out.It's a battle of wits, and a battle of even more seductive, even tastier food.*written while quarantined during the coronavirus pandemic
Relationships: Charlie Benante/Original Female Character, Dan Spitz/Original Female Character, Frank Bello/Original Female Character, Joey Belladonna/Original Female Character, Scott Ian/Original Female Character
Series: hamthrax sandwich [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629580
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Picking right up where bon appetit left off, where Danny and Val get together and the seeds of Frankie, Joey, and Charlie band together to sow on that cliffhanger.
> 
> The bakers:  
> Valentina "Val" Sabrosa: Danny's interest  
> Adrienne Bell: Joey's interest (maybe)  
> Sabrina "Bri" Shoemaker: Charlie's interest  
> Marlene "Mar/Miss Jackson": Scott's interest  
> Vanessa Expielle: has her eyes on Frankie as well as Joey  
> Sandra Black: boss lady of Smell the Magic; is totally clueless of everything going on
> 
> The boys:  
> Joey Belladonna // vox  
> Scott Ian // rhythm guitarist  
> Dan "Danny" Spitz // lead guitarist  
> Frank "Frankie" Bello // bassist  
> Charlie Benante // drums
> 
> The only thing I own are my OCs: if I did own Anthrax...  
> baby, you'd know I'd love every minute of it.
> 
> I've also gotten a couple of questions regarding the sketchy fantastical element of this fic: it's a metaphor for eating disorders.  
> Refusing to eat but doing it anyways, and regretting it after the fact, and letting yourself starve as a result. Something I am all too familiar with, and decided to write about it.

Frank and Joey adjust themselves into an upright position there on the bed. Their backs are pressed to the wall behind them. Their bodies are weak even with all they had eaten over the past five days.

Those gyros never smelled so good: the hummus looks fresh, just mashed from their chick peas. The vegetables are fresh while the chicken looks tender and crisp, straight off the grill.

Charlie shifts his weight there on the floor in front of Marlene.

Scott eyes her legs as she strokes closer to him in particular. He can smell the hummus in junction with the onions and tomatoes, and also her perfume.

There's no way out of this, especially when his stomach turns in hunger. They hadn't eaten all afternoon, and Dan and Valentina still haven't returned from their date yet.

Frank, Joey, and Charlie watch Scott raise his thick eyebrows at the sight of the gyros before him.

“You boys are so hungry, I can tell,” she whispers into his face. He swallows.

“I am,” he confesses in a hushed voice, “I dunno about these three guys, though.”

“Surely you have to be,” she vows, “neither of you have eaten anything all day.”

“Where's Danny and Val?” Charlie asks her out of the blue: he holds his drawings close to his chest.

“That's not important,” she says in a voice so light she might as well have breathed it. Scott purses his lips: those gyros are so tempting and he hadn't eaten anything all day.

A guy's gotta eat, especially when there's no money involved.

Careful not to break the flat bread, he picks up the gyro closest to him and holds it to his lips. Frank and Joey watch him in stunned silence; Charlie hunkers down next to him with his drawings pressed to his chest.

Scott sighs through his nose and takes a bite.


	2. Chapter 2

“I—I don't know if I can drive back home,” Dan sputters and runs his fingers through his feathery hair. Having a moment there in the car left him disoriented and off kilter with the act there in the car. Valentina tosses her black hair back over her shoulder and shows him a sweet, seductive smile: her lipstick never smeared or smudged after all of the movements back there in the seat. Dan laughs to himself as if he's drunk, even though the one thing he had eaten was a genuine gyro and a drink of water.

He turns to Valentina, who lingers right before his face with her crimson lips puckered a bit.

He shakes his head; the sound of the rain on the roof over their heads serves as a white noise and a blanket over the pounding heart beat in her ears.

“I can't,” he stammers, “I can't—I can't—I can't?”

She shows him her tongue. He knows she's done with him as of yet.

“No,” he begs her.

“Come on, baby,” she insists.

“I'm—”

“You know you want it.”

“I'm?”

“You know you want it with me.”

Dan parts his lips but no sound emerges. The sole noise is from the rain on the roof.

“You know you want it so bad,” she insists. “Let's go back there to the apartment and see what's going on there.”

She hands him the key. The sight of her face right there, those brown eyes gazing into his own, those luxurious dark waves on either side of her face, and her smooth skin on her neck and chest, illuminated by the soft light from the streetlamps outside…

The dizzy punch drunk feeling in his head fades out after remaining still for a moment. He runs his tongue along his bottom lip and takes the key from her.

He takes her back to the apartment and, upon seeing the lights in the windows, he remembers Scott, Frank, Joey, and Charlie in there in that room still.

He wonders what's going on there as she leads him back to the doorstep.


	3. Chapter 3

“So how's the gyro?” Marlene asks Scott with a flip of her scarlet hair.

“Tasty,” he replies with his mouth full. He glances over at Charlie right next to him: his hands are rested upon the drawings cradled in his lap. Bad dreams. Weird dreams. All emanating from being bunked up in this tiny little room here for five days on end. Or maybe it's from something else.

He raises his gaze towards Frank and Joey and the stunned looks on their faces.

Marlene hunkers down before Scott with those hooded, come hither eyes burning into the fabric of his mind. She rests her hands on the floor on either side of his hips: both he and Charlie can smell the soft but spicy perfume wafting from the side of her neck. Scott lowers his gaze to her chest, looming right there before his face. His mouth is full and he has nowhere to go.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can make out the sight of Charlie inching towards the bed, towards Frank and Joey's feet.

He swallows the bite and she brings her lips closer to his face. She puckers them a bit as if she's about to kiss him right there on his forehead, right above his thick eyebrows. But then she pouts them. Scott raises those thick eyebrows at her.

Charlie shuffles the papers in his lap and stuffs them under the blanket, right next to Frank's left foot. He clambers onto the side of the bed next to his right foot. Joey never moves a muscle.

Marlene closes her eyes. Scott doesn't move.

And then she pulls back. She opens her eyes and gazes into his stunned face.

“Eat up,” she commands in a low voice, “you're skin and bones.”

The three Italian men to his left freeze right in place there on the bed as their friend gingerly eats the gyro. Scott never realized how hungry he had felt until he starts taking more bites: it is in fact quite the tasty gyro. The flat bread is smooth, buttery, and perfect: those fresh crunchy vegetables are so refreshing; the hummus is smooth and enticing; the chicken is tender and full of that peppery flavor. So good. So good for such a hungry boy.

Scott reaches the last bite and licks a bit of residual hummus from his fingertips. Frank slides his legs up towards his body so his knees are protecting him. Charlie shuffles back towards the wall next to him. Joey still hasn't moved.

Marlene lingers before Scott's forehead again with her lips pouted just enough for him to wonder what's going to happen here. He doesn't move, and if anything, he could use a glass of soda to wash down that gyro.

She hangs about an inch from his forehead when he closes his eyes.

“Marlene!” Adrienne's voice floats into the room. Marlene turns her head for a look behind her; the door swings open right then and Adrienne skids inside: her smooth black hair drifts behind her head like a filmy curtain.

“Marlene, Valentina and Danny are back. I think he's drunk.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Val,” Marlene grumbles; she lifts up and away from Scott's face, and scrambles towards the door. Both women disappear into the hallway and into the next room.

It takes Scott a moment to realize that he's been holding his breath the whole entire time.

He lets out a low whistle and relaxes right there on the floor.

“Jesus,” he whispers as he leans his head back towards the wall and closes his eyes.

“Man, that was close,” Frank remarks.

“Yeah, I'll say…” Scott lifts his head from the wall's surface and stares across the wall. “Fellas, look—”

He glances over at the three of them on the bed, posted up like three little birds. They look towards the door, and then back at Scott himself.

Without another word, the three of them scramble off of the bed, albeit with a bit of struggle from Joey and Frank, given they hadn't moved much over the course of five days. Charlie scoops up his drawings and brushes past Scott into the hallway.

“Ow—” Joey blurts out; his knees buckled a bit but he catches himself and chases after Frank and Scott. The four of them duck across the hallway into what appears to be the laundry room. Charlie clasps the drawings up to his chest as he ducks behind the washing machine first; Scott and Joey take their seats next to him; Frank loses his balance and almost falls ass over teakettle onto the linoleum. As he catches himself, he smacks his foot onto Scott's ankle. Scott himself winces and jerks his ankle back; Frank falls onto his hip next to Joey.

“Ow!”

“Shhh!” Charlie hisses, and Joey clasps his hand over Frank's mouth to keep him quiet. The four of them are silent there in the shadows as they listen on at what's going on in the next room.

Marlene says something. And then Adrienne says something. And then Dan says something.

Scott licks his lips given the taste of the hummus combined with the onions and the chicken is still rather strong even in residue. There is nothing more he wants at the moment than a glass of soda.

Joey still has his hand plastered to Frank's mouth when his knees and his ankles begin quivering from squatting down there. He takes a seat there on the linoleum with his back pressed to the wall. Careful not to make any noise, Charlie shuffles the drawings around a bit so they're compiled in an organized enough stack in his lap.

There's silence.

And then—

“Marlene?” Sabrina's voice floats into the room from across the hall.

“Yes, Sabrina?”

“Where—did they go?”

Neither of them move, or breathe, or make a sound.

“Oh, fuck,” Marlene says in an exasperated tone.

There's some rustling out there in the hallway, followed by more voices. Dan says something again, this time in a bit of a slur of a voice.

Marlene says something, which is then followed by the front door opening and closing.

Silence. Prolonged silence.

Charlie lets out a low sigh. Scott relaxes his body again.

“Think you let go of Frankie's mouth now, Joey,” he says in a soft voice, and Joey slowly lowers his hand from Frank's mouth. “That was a good gyro—”

“Don't even think about it,” Frank scoffs.

“Can we at least go and check on Danny, though?” asks Joey.

“Might as well,” Charlie replies with one last check of the stack against his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ALL I WANTED WAS A PEPSI! AND SHE WOULDN'T GIVE IT TO ME!  
> SHE WOULDN'T GIVE IT TO ME! JUST A PEPSI!"
> 
> (you have no clue how much I've been itching to make an acknowledgement to that song in a piece of writing, oh my god)


	4. Chapter 4

Charlie hands Scott his drawings, who pins them to his chest to keep them intact. He then crawls out from behind the washing machine: he raises himself up onto his feet by the time he reaches the door of the machine, but he keeps himself stooped down as he makes his way over to the actual door. Loose strands of dark waves dangle down over his shoulder as he pokes his head out around the corner.

The apartment is quiet, almost too quiet.

But the silence is golden as Charlie gestures for his three friends to follow him out of the laundry room. The only one with bare feet is Joey: the other three guys have their socks on as they creep across the linoleum to the door way.

There's an odd wheezing sound down the hall in the next room.

Scott and Frank poke their heads out from underneath Charlie; Joey gets down on his knees for a peek out himself.

“Dan?” Charlie calls out in a small voice. Silence. He clears his throat. “D-Dan? Danny?”

There's a groan down the hall.

“Shit,” Scott mutters, and the four of them dodge out from around the corner to check on the resident little lion man. The girls had lay Dan on the couch and put an ice pack on his forehead. Nothing can deny the look of delirium on his face, or the fiery red glaze, much like the one on those signature donuts from Smell the Magic, smeared all over his face.

“Smells like sugar in here,” Frank remarks; he turns his head as Scott directs his attention to the platter of said donuts underneath the window. Ten of them, all of them looking as though they had just been taken out of the oven and glazed for their enjoyment.

Scott nibbles on his bottom lip: he had eaten that gyro but there stands before him, those decadent donuts.

“Gonna say this right now, that's a booby trap,” Joey warns him when the memory of his car accident flashes to mind. But it's as if Scott's in a trance: he lunges for the platter, to which Charlie dives forth to subdue him.

“No, you idiot!” Charlie cries out, and Scott groans from hitting the floor.

“Then again, something tells me that was an excuse for you to say the word 'booby',” Frank teases him. Joey shrugs at that.

“'Cause you can't go wrong with 'em,” he points out.

“Get Danny!” Charlie declares, and without another moment's hesitation, Frank and Joey lunge for Dan there on the couch. The former takes the ice pack off of his forehead, and sets it down on the coffee table next to him, and takes a peek into Dan's bleary eyes and his withering face.

As if someone had injected some kind of venom into him. One of the girls got him good.

“Want me to pick him up?” Joey offers Frank: the hockey player to the baseball player.

“Nah, I'll get him. I can see you breaking your ankle getting down to the car, Joe. Out of the two of us, you were probably the most bed ridden.” Frank scoops up Dan and Joey rounds the couch for the door, where they're met with droves of warm spring rain against the black night. Joey's bare feet are soaking wet by the time they reach the car and he lunges into the back seat on the driver's side; Scott and Charlie throw off their wet socks before they dive into the front seats; the former uses one hand to take them off, while using his other arm to keep Charlie's drawings tucked away and safe from the rain. Frank and Dan take the seats next to Joey, who lets the latter lay his head on his lap.

“Where are the keys?” Scott asks as he sets down the drawings on the dashboard and rummages through the darkness.

“The—The—The—center console,” Dan's speech is so slurred.

“What the hell did they do to you?” Scott mutters as they hear something opening, which is then followed by keys jingling.

Through the darkness, Joey can make out the sight of Frank's dark eyes gazing back at him.

“Joey, where'd you put the recipe Charlie and I took?”

“Right under Charlie's seat—”

Frank reaches underneath the passenger side seat for that piece of paper, still pristine and protected despite all of the rain. The car roars to life and they roll down the driveway towards the street.

“Also when Danny and I were eavesdropping on Adrienne and Beau, they were talking about like—becoming complete humans or something like that. I don't really remember it.”

“Complete humans?” Frank echoes as he scans over the piece of paper.

“You got enough light back there, Frankie?” Scott calls out as they turn onto the street and head on down towards the first stop light. Joey switches on the light on the ceiling for him and Frank rescans over the paper. He knits his eyebrows at the text before him. The five of them are silent save for the rain on the roof and the cars on the street outside. And then Frank's eyes widen and his face washes out to the color of old porridge.

“Oh, my God,” he blurts out.

“What is it?” Charlie calls from the front seat.

“This recipe we took is defunct as of five nights ago, and they reintroduced a new one at the bakery here in Manhattan.”

“Five nights ago, so when we got here,” Scott follows along, and then he shrugs. “What's wrong with that?”

“The new one they introduced—has—blood incorporated into it.”

Scott slams on the brakes: lucky for them, no cars were coming their way. Joey and Frank clasp onto the bars over their heads; Charlie catches his drawings in his lap and almost slides right out of his seat. Dan meanwhile hardly moves over the middle seat between Joey and Frank. Scott turns around and gapes at Frank, who nods at him with a mortified look on his face.

“What—kinda blood?” Scott stammers as he sucks in his stomach.

“It doesn't say. It just says 'two drops of blood'.” Frank lifts his gaze for a look over at Joey, who at some point sank down in the seat and now his shirt is riding up his body.

“Good thing we didn't eat those donuts,” Charlie says in a soft voice.

“Yeah—thank you, Joey,” Scott sputters and lets out a low whistle.

“It was—nothin'.” Joey peers over at Frank, who looks down at Dan and his dazed expression. It's a wild guess, and it's something neither of them want to think about as they roll forward and head over to Queens to Scott's place.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even kidding, I was laughing the whole time writing this. Just.. read this in their voices.

“Alright—so how are we gonna do this?” asks Scott.

The five of them had arrived at his apartment there in Queens about a minute ago, and just in time for the rain to dissipate out a bit. Joey and Frank are still huddled in the back seat but Scott and Charlie both climbed out and are now looking on at Dan there laying on the seat from Frank's side. Joey cradles Dan's head in his lap but he had placed his arms on the top of the seat. He frowns at the delirious look on Dan's face and the glazed over appearance of his otherwise bright eyes. Scott had handed Joey Charlie's sketchbook to keep it dry: and he had tucked it under his jacket.

“I can carry him out,” Frank suggests.

“That's rough, though,” Joey points out.

“Yeah, I can see him hitting his head on the ceiling,” Charlie adds.

“I'll be careful, though,” Frank insists. “Unless you wanna, Joe.”

“And have him throw out his back? I don't think so,” Scott grumbles.

“I also have Charlie's sketchbook,” Joey points out.

“Oh, yeah, right, right, right...”

“Well, we gotta do somethin', though,” Charlie declares. “I'm getting soaked over here, Scott.”

“Ah, fuck it, I'll do it myself—” Frank reaches for Dan's shoulders. He scoops him off of Joey's lap and the middle of the seat, and holds him close to his body. Joey ducks out from other side of the car and into the drizzle. He rounds the trunk of the car right as Frank inches out from the right side with Dan in his arms.

“Yo, watch the edge of the door,” Charlie scoffs.

“I'm watchin'!”

Over the rain, Joey hears Scott jingling his keys; he unlocks the front door of the apartment building. Once Frank has Dan out of the car, Charlie closes the door and he huddles next to Joey as they step inside the dry safety of the lobby.

Charlie's wavy hair is dripping wet but that's the least of his problems at the moment, especially once they're inside of the elevator. Frank is all but cradling Dan in his arms as they congregate behind an elderly lady with a spindly black cane. She turns her head for a look back at the five men donned in dirty clothes who are dripping wet on the tiles, and neither one of them are wearing shoes.

“How ya doin', ma'am?” Scott greets her with a grin and a raise of his thick eyebrows.

She doesn't reply especially when she gets off at the second floor.

Once they're off at Scott's floor, they bustle out of there onto the carpet and down the hall. Scott fumbles his keys a bit as he unlocks his door and almost swan dives inside of his flat. Frank is quick to lay Dan onto the sofa on the side of the room; Joey takes Charlie's sketchbook out from underneath his jacket and places it on the counter in the kitchen next to the microwave. He strips off his jacket and joins Frank at the little table there in the kitchen. Their hair drips with rain water but that's the least of their problems.

Dan almost falls off of the couch, and the four of them lunge for him.

“NO!” Scott shrieks. Charlie dives for Dan and catches him in time before he can actually fall off of the couch. He pushes him back onto the cushions and Scott collapses on the far end, right next to Dan's head. Charlie sinks down onto the floor underneath Dan to ensure he doesn't fall off again.

“Christ,” Joey sighs with relief. Frank stands to his feet again, this time to close the front door. He hesitates right there in the middle of the floor with his brown eyes fixated on something on the far side of the room.

“Scott—Charlie—Joey—am I hallucinating,” Frank starts, “or are those donuts I see off to the side—” He clears his throat. “—right there?”

The three of them follow his gaze to the window there: indeed, there appears to be something bright red floating behind the window pane. Bright red, like the glaze on those donuts.

“Don't—” Charlie starts.

Frank nibbles on his bottom lip.

“Don't—even— _fucking_ think about it, Frankie,” Joey warns him.

“The blood, remember?” Charlie follows up. There's a pause. And then Frank lunges for the window.

“NO!” Joey shouts, much like how he shouts in song. Charlie almost somersaults across the floor to stop Frank in his tracks, but he's quick to open the window. Nothing there but the falling cloud of warm spring drizzle. A mere hallucination on all their parts.

He rubs his eyes and closes the window just enough so there's a bit of a breeze to vent the otherwise stuffy room. Joey leans back in the chair and runs his fingers through his wet black curls. Frank returns to his seat next to him while Charlie clambers for the third seat, the one at Joey's left. The three of them gaze on at Scott right as he's falling asleep.

“The fuck, he was just awake,” Frank points out.

“All the adrenaline's wearing off, I guess?” Joey figures with a bit of a shrug. “I dunno, if I'm honest.”

Charlie turns his head in Frank's direction.

“You still have that recipe with you?” he asks.

“It's in the car,” Frank admits. “Which means when one of us has a moment, we gotta get it.”

“If it's a new thing that they're gonna sick onto us, just imagine if it's going to the rest of the bakeries across the country,” Joey mutters.

“We gotta get that blood out of the bakery before it seeps out into the rest of New York,” Charlie concludes.

“New York, and who knows where the fuck else,” Joey adds. Frank looks on at the side of the room, where Scott's out like a light and Dan is lounging on his back with his hair disheveled and his face still in complete delirium. He nibbles on his lip before returning to Joey and Charlie.

“We got our work cut for us, though, gentlemen,” he points out.

“We can so do it, though,” Charlie declares with a shrug.

“Hell yeah, the three of us,” Joey adds with a smirk.

“I mean, fuck, we're the ones who nicked the recipe,” Frank recalls, “and Joey, you overheard a lot in that room.”

“The hell I did.”

“God, it's almost like we were chosen,” Charlie mutters under his breath.

“The three of us,” Frank echoes what Joey said.

“Three Italian guys, five girls—let's get on it, baby,” Joey declares, sticking his hand out over the table top. Frank sets his hand on top of Joey's hand, and then Charlie sets his hand on top of Frank's hand.

“Let's get on it,” Charlie echoes.

“Let's get on it—the true drunk pastry club,” says Frank with a push of their hands.


	6. Chapter 6

Scott and Dan had fallen asleep there on the couch, which bought the three of them some time to head on out of the apartment to do some snooping about in the rain.

Granted it's raining down through the streets of the heart of Queens, but nevertheless, Frank leads Joey and Charlie outside to the drenched sidewalk. Neither of the three of them can believe the sight of the hallucination outside of the window: it was so vivid and the fact they all saw it for themselves only made it even more bizarre. Frank and Charlie take to the front while Joey lounges in the backseat once again.

“Hey, where are the seat belts?” asks Charlie as he feels around the darkness for the seat belt next to his shoulder. Nothing there. Joey feels around the seat for the three belts back there. Nothing there.

“I—I—” Joey stammers. “—I—don't know.”

Frank gropes around the dark front of the car for the keys.

“Center console, Frankie,” Joey points out. There's a jingling and Frank takes them out of hiding.

“Alright, so how are we gonna do this?” asks Charlie.

“I say we go to the source,” Frank suggests. “To the bakery here in Manhattan.”

“Okay.”

The three of them are silent except for the rain on the roof over their heads.

“Do… we remember where it is,” Joey says it out loud.

“Wait. Where even are we?” asks Charlie.

“Somewhere near a place that sells gyros,” Frank replies as he starts up the car.

“There's like five of them around here, though,” Charlie points out.

“No, there's only like three.”

“Joey, help us out here.”

“What do you want me to do?” Joey asks with a bit of a chuckle.

“Oh, right, right, right, upstate.”

“Well, let's just drive around in circles until we see big pink lettering,” Frank suggests.

“What the hell is that gonna do?” Charlie scoffs.

“It'll get us movin' for one!” Joey declares.

“We might find some clues, too,” Frank points out.

And without another word, they roll away from the curb and begin down the drenched street towards the intersection. Frank catches the light green and they hang a left down the next block. Everything looks identical to one another, even down to the next fire hydrant and the next park bench. The skyscrapers loom over their heads like scary monsters; the entrances to the subways even look exactly the same.

Joey rests his arms over the tops of the seats at one point: he takes a look out the right window, right behind Charlie's head. Neon sign after neon sign. Mailbox after mailbox.

He looks out the left, behind Frank's head. Same story there.

“Do I genuinely have brain damage,” he says out loud.

“I think I may have some, too, Joe,” Charlie follows up.

“Yeah, me, too,” Frank agrees with a peer about the dark street. “This is—really weird. Oh, wait! Oh, no. Never mind. Just a strip joint.”

“Where the fuck are we?” asks Charlie as they pull up to a red light and a long line of cars and golden yellow taxi cabs.

Joey peers out the left window again to which he lets out a gasp.

“Frankie! Turn here!”

“Here?” Frank calls back: in the dim light, Joey makes out the sight of his eyebrows raised in the rear view mirror.

“Here!”

Frank turns his head and spots that hot pink perforating the darkness.

“Oh, yeah! Good eyes, Joey!”

The traffic inches forth a bit, which gives Frank enough clearance to take the left turn lane. They hang there for a moment until the light turns green. Frank guns it and they head towards the end of the lane. Joey clutches onto the tops of the seats to steady himself. Charlie clasps onto the safety bar over his head.

“Hang on, guys!” Frank grunts out as they make the sharp left onto the big wide four lane street. They pass a handful of cars as they reach the block Smell the Magic is on. Frank makes a quick left turn to the alley behind the bakery and takes the first spot at the curb. They come to an abrupt stop, which makes Joey almost slide right out of the seat and Charlie clasp onto the bar with both hands.

“Jesus,” Frank mutters as he kills the engine. They climb out of there and onto the soaking wet sidewalk.

“The recipe by the way, is in my coat pocket,” he informs Joey and Charlie as they pad up towards the dark front door: the sole light is coming from the street lamp there on the corner next to them.

 _Boys are so, so dumb_.

Joey shakes his head and clasps a hand to his temple.

“What's the matter, Joey?” Charlie asks him.

“I dunno if Danny told you guys this or not, but—by some black magic, some sorcery, I can read the girls' minds as long as I have my bracelet on. And just the girls, too.”

“How'd you manage that?”

“Marlene bewitched it when I was in the hospital. I discovered it when we were about to have that li'l party.”

“Well, shit,” Frank declares.

“And yes, I did hear something,” Joey continues as he tucks a curled lock behind his ear.

“Which means they gotta be nearby if that's the case,” Charlie concludes, “or at least one of them, anyway.”

Joey shakes his right sleeve to reveal that flat elongated silver bracelet on his wrist. He sets three fingers on it to feel that cold metal, and then he hears it again.

 _Boys are so, so dumb_.

Frank and Charlie watch him hold still for a minute, that is until he gestures behind him. He leads the way down the wet sidewalk towards the corner, and he keeps going back towards the car. Frank keeps close to him while Charlie peers over his shoulder to ensure no one is coming their way.

Joey reaches the alleyway and the back door protected by a short awning. There on the back step stands a little black box with something bright red on top. Joey rubs his eyes free of the falling rain as he makes his way over to it.

“What is it?” asks Charlie as Joey and Frank reach the box for a closer look.

“Smells like sugar,” Frank remarks. “You know that melted sugar smell you often smell with like candy apples or whatever?”

Joey opens the lid to find a note and a key on the inside. He takes out the key and slips it into the keyhole underneath the doorknob in the door, and then he pushes it open to reveal the dark back room which smells even more of that molten sugar aroma.

“But what's that say?” asks Frank with a gesture to the note; he then reaches to his right to switch on the lights. The three men squint from the sudden onslaught of bright light, but Joey examines the note in his hand.

“'Good luck,'” Joey reads out loud. He turns it over to find a blank space on the back. “That's all it says.” He glances at Frank and Charlie with a baffled look on his face.

“Well, shit,” Frank mutters.


	7. Chapter 7

The back room of the bakery is spare, as if the place had been ransacked and cleaned out. Joey peers up at the ceiling overhead and runs his fingers through his black curls. He had tucked the box underneath his arm and slipped the note into his jacket pocket. Frank stoops over for a glimpse at one of the shelves close to their ankles for a better and closer look. Nothing there, and it doesn't help matters that staying in that little room for five days straight with the bare minimum of movement makes his knees feel weak to the touch.

A noise in the room before them halts them in their tracks. Charlie raises a finger to the both of them to keep them silent.

The three of them are frozen in place when a box sails before the doorway in front of them. There's a shuffling noise up ahead; Frank ducks behind Joey, even though he's just as worried as him. Charlie lunges back towards Joey as another box flies in front of the doorway.

Neither of the three men move or make a sound when there's silence there on the other side of the door. Joey holds his breath when a woman neither of them recognize pokes her head out from the edge of the door.

Her jet black hair is in a short bob right above her shoulders and is smooth like glass. Her brilliant eyes in conjunction with her dark brown skin gaze on at the three of them in such a quizzical fashion that Joey has no idea what to say to her once she opens her sensual lips.

“Can I help you guys?” she asks in a light Southern accent.

“Um—” Joey's throat closes up from nerves. It doesn't help matters that Frank and Charlie are holding onto him like a shield, to which she raises an eyebrow at.

“It's okay—I'm a siren who breached my contract,” she reassures them, “that is if that's what you guys are so afraid of.”

“You used to be a siren?” asks Frank as he steps out from behind Joey for a better look at her.

“Yeah. I breached my contract apparently, so now I'm trying to find some dirt on them to expose to Sandra.”

Frank and Charlie glance at one another. Joey squints at her.

“How—should we trust you?” Charlie asks her in a reluctant tone.

“You guys need to eat regular food and get the fuck out of here,” she says to them. “That's the only way to set those girls free is to just eat to your hearts' desire, but not by how they want you to. At least—that's what I've found.”

“That's what you've found?” Charlie echoes, taken aback.

“Yeah. It's not much, but it's something, though. Something so far. There's still a lot to be found, like where the blood in the recipe is coming from. And what makes any of it legitimate. And all that shit. I'll admit it's a bit confusing.”

“What's your name?” asks Joey.

“Vanessa.” She steps out to reveal her slim but nicely curved body, wrapped in a leather trench coat and capped with knee high boots. “Vanessa Expielle. I came up here from New Orleans about a week ago—I've been trying to find out what's going on with them. I thought I'd come here to New York City seeing as this is the big bakery on the East Coast.”

“Here, and not over in Portland?” asks Frank; he runs his fingers through his lush black hair.

“I'm thinking of heading on over to Portland—but it's kinda risky, though. You know, that being the main Smell the Magic and whatnot.”

The three of them take another look at one another and then she fetches up an exasperated sigh. She doubles back to the rest of the bakery; Joey ambles up to the door to watch her.

“Vanessa, can I ask you something?” he begins; she squats down behind the display case, the same place where Sabrina had seduced them before.

“Yeah, go ahead,” she replies with an absent tone of voice.

“How'd you know—we were affected by them, I'd say?”

She raises her head for look back at him.

“You're afraid and the three of you look as though you hadn't seen sunlight in a while. It happened to Ozzy and it happened to that little band called Dust. That is until they all got away. You're starving artists.”

Frank and Charlie join Joey there at the doorway to watch her delve through the empty boxes for a moment.

“If I can find where the blood's coming from, I can work my way around it and probably undo it,” she tells them in a single breath.  
“Funny, we're doing the same thing,” Frank tells her.

“Oh?” Vanessa stops and glances back at the three of them again.

“Yeah, Charlie and I took one of the recipes to see if we could mess with them a bit. And it's one with blood.”

“Oh, baby, that's not the only one with blood,” she tells them. Joey gasps and Charlie brings a hand to his mouth.

“You mean there's more than one with blood?” Frank sputters.

“Yeah, there's—two more. But that's pretty ballsy of you guys to take a recipe, though. If Marlene or even Sandra were find out about it, they'd go ape shit so fast…”

Frank shudders at the thought of Marlene losing it.

“So we gotta hide it is what you're saying,” Charlie concludes.

“For sure. I'd hide that thing like it's gold in Fort Knox. Or the Arc of the Covenant.” She hesitates when she sees Joey's bracelet.

“That thing's bewitched,” she points out with a nod of her head. Joey raises his right wrist to touch the bracelet.

“Yeah,” he says in a soft voice. “How'd you know?”

“Marlene is a sneaky, slippery bitch. She and those girls will do anything to fool boys like you—like you in particular.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You're very thin and toned and you're a man with brown eyes. You're trusting. You're sweet and charming and you have a niche accent.” She bows her head a bit.

“Upstate New York, right?”

“Yeah,” he replies with a nervous smile and a firmer grip of his bracelet.

“I know this because—” She stands to her feet. “—one of the boys they tried to seduce and take advantage was exactly like that. Exactly like that, he was even from upstate. I had a big crush on him. I tried to hide it but Marlene and the girls did what they could to erase it from me. They wanted me to wreck that boy, to fatten him up and leave him a mess dependent on me that it would literally destroy him when I broke it off with him. But I couldn't help it—I liked that boy. He was such a sweet heart—he even kind of looked like you, too—” She cocks her head to the side.

“Joey,” he says, “this is Frankie and Charlie.”

“Joey—Frankie and Charlie—but anyway, that was part of why I was told I breached my contract.”

Frank flashes on Valentina while Joey thinks of Adrienne and Charlie of Sabrina. Three girls who like them, or so they think—but then Marlene has her fling with Scott. Maybe they're all breaching their contract and no one wants to admit. Neither of them knew the answer, but Vanessa might lead them towards it.


	8. Chapter 8

Vanessa strides over to the far side of the room in hopes to search for something else that can lead her, Joey, Frank, and Charlie to a clue of some sort. The three of them are congregated at the door there on the outside looking into the room; Joey had set down the box on the shelf next to the display case just to give it a rest. Charlie had peeled off his jacket given the sheer extent of the warmth in there, to which she took notice of.

“Odd,” she points out, “it's not even all that hot in here, especially since it's kinda chilly outside.”

“I'm hot as fuck,” he confesses to her. She's holding a box of bran muffins when she takes a better look at him.

“Were you guys in isolation at one point?”

“We were locked in a bedroom for like five days,” Frank answers as he tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. “Joey here and I were in a bed and we barely moved the whole time.”

“Explains why you boys don't look well—they were feeding you and you weren't doing much of anything. Surprised you guys aren't like five hundred pounds or something.”

“I'm kinda surprised we aren't,” Frank admits to her with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Oh, I see.” She nods her head at that.

“See what?”

“It's because you guys are fighting it,” Vanessa continues; she sets the box down on the shelf next to her and pushes a few more boxes to the side. Nothing there. “If you gave in like the poor guys before you, the three of you wouldn't be so skinny. I say that 'cause Ozzy and those guys from Nuclear Assault fought it all and got away from it.”

The three of them gape at each other at the sound of Nuclear Assault.

“They got our buds from Nuclear Assault?” Charlie asks her, shocked.

“Yup, it was right when I got kicked out, too,” Vanessa continues, “they went through the exact thing you guys are right now. Tempted by the baked goods, fought their appetites, gave in a little bit, and fought it ad infinitum until the main guy—I forget his name—”

“Dan,” Frank replies.

“Dan! That was it. Yeah, he started to get curious like you guys are right now and he managed to pry his band mates away from the bakery. It got kinda messy, though. Like they were fighting it and fighting it and fighting it and the four of them almost got too sick to stand on their own two feet, but they were tough, though. What was interesting was it felt like a battle of wits. But I don't really know anything else that happened because Marlene showed me the door right when things were starting to come to a head.”

“So they got them and the guy who looked like me?” Joey asks her with a folding of his arms across his chest.

“Yeah, that poor boy got into the mix even though I knew he wasn't part of it,” Vanessa replies as she adjusts the lapels of her coat. “I wanted to run away with him but he told me it was too risky with me. He told me he had a bad dream where the girls killed him and then me if he got too close to me. So I not only lost my job, but I lost the boy I liked, too. I've pretty much been walking the streets of New York City trying to make things right as well as seek out revenge on them.”

“It's funny, I've—I've been having some weird dreams, too,” Charlie tells her.

“Yeah, Charlie's been keeping a dream journal for the past few days,” Frank adds, “or at least from when we were locked in the room.”

Vanessa chews on her bottom lip. Neither of them can deny the look in her eye or the fact that they're dealing with someone who had actually been inside of the circle of bakers.

“I don't want to lose you guys,” she confesses. “And—I assume there's more of you?”

“Our friends and band mates Scott and Dan, coincidentally,” Joey tells her as she gazes at him right in the eye.

“Are they—safe?”

“They're at Scott's apartment over in Queens,” Frank tells her.

“Okay. Good. At least all of you guys are out of that room, that's all that matters to me. I don't want to make the same mistake before of putting boys' lives in danger, and I don't want it all to blow straight to hell, either. I also wanna ask, do you guys feel—disoriented at all?”

“Kinda?” Joey replies. “Well, I'm from upstate—there's a lotta the city I don't recognize.”

“There was a lot of the way on over here from Queens that threw me off,” Frank follows up. “And Charlie and I are from the Bronx.”

She purses her lips together in the form of a frown at them.

“What?” asks Charlie as he slings his coat over his shoulder.

“Seriously, you guys need to eat something,” she declares. She then adjusts the lapels on her coat once more and gestures for them to follow her to the front door. “—here, I'll get you something. I won't do anything nefarious, though, I promise. There's no poison with me.”


	9. Chapter 9

Vanessa leads Frank, Joey, and Charlie back into the street, where the rain has subsided somewhat to a light drizzle of sorts over their heads. She stands next to Frank for a moment to fix the lapels of her jacket before she does anything more. Joey hunches his shoulders and tucks his hands into his jacket pockets; Charlie peers behind him to the sidewalk.

“It's alright, it's just us,” she assures him.

“So where do you wanna take us?” Frank asks her; he gazes across the street to the brick building there on the other side. He flashes back on the night they were in there and Joey sang into the microphone after he had eaten a lot. It's all so complex and all so baffling that he has no idea what to do with Vanessa herself. She used to be a siren. And yet here she is, about to help them out.

“Something warm,” she confesses. “Come with me.”

She ambles down the sidewalk towards the corner and the three of them huddle up behind her. A gust of wind blows through Frank's lush black hair which in turn sends a shiver down his spine; and yet she herself doesn't seem to be bothered by the cold. She hesitates there to await for them as well as a clearing in traffic.

The whole neighborhood feels as though it had been turned around and upside down: it could be from the fact neither of them have eaten much or it could be from something else. The cool night air is making Frank shiver and Joey and Charlie look as though they're about to fall onto each other like a pair of dominoes. Vanessa meanwhile seems unfazed by the three of them looming up right behind her. She's like a regular young woman in New York City, albeit in the middle of the night and in the eye of the storm.

The sidewalk seems to stretch on forever before the four of them, or at least that's from Frank's point of view. Onward into the darkness.

Every building looks exactly the same to him.

He turns his head to Joey and Charlie, the latter of whom is having difficulty keeping up with the other three. Joey puts his arm around him to hold him close.

He holds onto him for a little bit until Vanessa reaches to the right and yanks open the glass front door of the little Italian place here.

It's warm and dry in there, and smells of fresh baked bread and tomato sauce.

She vouches for the first table near the back of the room and tugs back the chair closest to the wall, and gestures for Frank to take a seat there. He slides into the seat while Joey and Charlie take the ones across from him and Vanessa.

Charlie rubs his temples and closes his eyes.

“You alright, Char?” Frank asks him.

“I don't feel so good,” he replies in a low mutter of a voice. Vanessa leans forward and gazes right into his face; Frank then thinks back to when Valentina had taken them out to lunch in Seattle, and he wonders if she's going to do a similar thing here with them.

She folds her hands together over the surface of the table before her. But she doesn't speak to him. She examines his face but never says a word.

Frank nibbles on his bottom lip and flashes a glimpse over at Joey, who runs his fingers through the burgeoning crown of black curls atop his head and gazes behind him. Frank turns his head to the kitchen doorway right behind them: every time it swings open, both men catch a whiff of the fresh baked bread and all manner of food being made back there. He turns back to Joey with a twinkle in his eye; Joey nibbles on his bottom lip and nods his head, albeit with an excited look upon his face.

Within time, their waiter comes to the table.

That ice water can't get into Frank's mouth fast enough: being locked in that room and not having drank anything more leaves the back of his throat feeling parched and dry. Charlie fetches up a sigh and runs his fingers through the dark waves around his head. The tone of his skin has washed out from the feeling and that's when Vanessa leans in closer to him.

“You have to eat,” she whispers to him. “You look pale and sickly.” He swallows and shifts his weight there in the chair. She sighs and bows her head a bit. “It's okay—” She touches the back of his hand: the tips of her fingers feel as light as feathers. “—I haven't done that bullshit in so long that I forgot what it feels like. Eat up. Eat up and fill your belly.”

Charlie leans back in the chair next to Joey and Vanessa follows suit next to Frank.

“You guys are all Italian, right?” she asks them with a flick of her smooth black hair.

“Each of us,” Joey tells her; he unzips his jacket and she eyes his chest. He hesitates there for a second with what he had heard before they stepped inside of the bakery. He wonders if it was Vanessa thinking that or perhaps it was a fleeting thought from elsewhere; the matte silver making up the bracelet gleams underneath the warm lights. He peers up at Vanessa gazing at the bracelet, and more so when he sets his hand down on the table before him. Frank glances over at her and her eyes scanning Joey's forearm and chest.

The sirens seduce them into the darkness. They can see their struggles. This one, this former member, is definitely walking the line here with the three of them.

Charlie sighs through his nose again.

 _Being naughty can be lots of fun, you know_. Joey can hear it again. It's definitely her voice.

He lifts his gaze to her and into her face. Her lips curl up into a sweet smile.

 _Oh. This boy can hear me. It's alright, though_ —

She turns her gaze to Frank.

 _I like him, too. All three of these boys are hot. All Italian. Italian boys are so sexy—I'm so glad I got away from the sirens_.

Joey shows her a bit of tongue once the waiter returns with a basket of fresh bread. Charlie doesn't hesitate to take one of those short baguettes for himself and stuffs it into his mouth; Frank takes one for himself as well. Vanessa eyes Joey again.

 _It's alright, baby. Just take it, baby. Eat up. You need it. No, really, you need it_.

Joey shows her his tongue again and gingerly takes a baguette for himself, and Vanessa nods her head at him.


	10. Chapter 10

Within time, the waiter places the large white china bowls of pasta before the three men there. The aroma alone beckoned a hearty rumble from Joey's stomach, such that he's quick to pick up that fork next to him. He sets his free hand on his slender stomach as he shovels in the smooth nice and warm pasta.

Eating as though he hadn't in years. All those cold elementary nights on the shores of Lake Ontario there in upstate New York with nothing more than a bowl of Italy and a cup of tea have led up to this.

Frank picks up his fork and twirls the tines around a rather large bundle of linguine. It smells of fresh garlic and melted butter; that aroma of nostalgia that he cannot resist for another second. Charlie rubs his eyes with one hand as he's reaching for the silver fork to his right. Like the two of them, he can't resist that warm familiar aroma tickling his nose. All those bitter cold nights in the heart of the Bronx with nothing more than that lush Italian food to warm up their little boy tummies.

Vanessa joins the three of them with a warm smile upon her face.

Neither of them say a word the whole time they're eating; every so often, she raises her gaze to either one of them. It's as if they're in a trance. All three of them were in fact starving because of the sirens.

At one point, Frank lifts his head and closes his eyes to nurse the taste of the garlic in junction with the smooth noodles and the smooth butter.

Joey sighs through his nose given his mouth is full of pasta. Charlie rubs his eyes again and takes a rather large bite.

“So how you guys wanna do this?” she asks them.

“Do what?” asks Frank with his mouth full. He swallows and looks on at her with a dazed look on his face.

“Take down the girls.”

“Not sure.”

“Well, you guys have the recipe with you. And you're here with me. We oughta do something.”

“Well, the three of us have been wanting to find a way to stop the blood from getting into the pastries,” Charlie points out once he swallows down the pasta.

“We know how to get into the bakery—but I wasn't able to find any blood,” she confesses.

Joey swallows down his bite of pasta.

“The one in Portland,” he tells her.

“What about it?” she asks him.

“That's the original one. Maybe if we go there, we can figure it out from there.”

“Cut off the head and the body will die,” she states. “I'm not too sure if we'll find anything, though. I wasn't able to find anything down in New Orleans, or here.”

“Yeah, but that's the original one,” he insists.

“Fly clear across the country that might be a wild goose chase,” she mutters.

“It's worth a shot, though,” Frank points out as he scoops up another bite. “It's worth a shot for the three of us as well as Scott and Danny, and who knows—maybe most of the country.”

Vanessa sighs through her nose. She reaches for her glass of soft white wine.

“Well—if I'm buying you boys dinner, I should buy us a ticket to ride across the heart of America to the Pacific Northwest.” She brings the glass to her lips for a sip; Frank reaches for his glass as well and then raises it to her as if beckoning a toast.

 _Boys are so dumb. Oh my fucking God_.

Joey shakes his head again and this time follows it up with a rub of his temple. He can hear it so loud and clear inside of his mind. Charlie flashes a glimpse up at him and his fluttering eyelashes as if he's waking up from a deep sleep.

Both men know they have to trust Vanessa on this, but there has to be a reason Joey keeps hearing stuff like this inside of his mind.


	11. Chapter 11

It's almost ten thirty at night by the time Vanessa and the three of them are driving towards the airport to fetch four plane tickets for the next flight out to Portland. At least the rain had stopped while they were in the restaurant: the last thing she wants is to tend to three young men with their otherwise slim bellies distended who are getting drenched in this warm spring rain. She taps her fingers along the rim of the steering wheel with each passing street lamp along the turnpike on the way over to the airport.

She knows it's late, but any airport in the world is open no matter what the time. Perhaps it is because it's so late, but Joey keeps muttering to himself.

“Will you stop that?” she finally insists to him.

“Stop what?” he asks her in a low voice.

“Talking to yourself.”

“I'm actually singin' to myself,” he points out.

“Well, will you cut it out? It's very distracting.”

Joey sighs through his nose and shifts his weight there in his seat. Out of the three of them, he had eaten the most: all that pasta right down his gullet and leaving a warm, sensual feeling in his flat stomach. Moreover, he keeps on hearing that fleeting thought courtesy of his silver bracelet and he has no idea where it's coming from to that, either. It doesn't help that bit of red wine he had shared with Frank is now giving him a throbbing at the temples.

Vanessa takes the next ramp off of the freeway which in turns takes them to the airport. Even though the signs are obvious, she can't help but wonder if she was a bit too terse towards Joey right then. He was only singing to himself after all.

She rolls up to the first spot before the front doors and yanks on the parking lever. She kills the engine and runs her fingers through her bob of black hair.

“It's gonna be a while, though, boys,” she assures them. She takes a glimpse into the rear view mirror to see Frank and Charlie fast asleep in the back seat.

She then peers over at Joey there in the front seat next to her: he had sunken down the upholstery so far that his shirt is now riding up his slender body. He peers up at her from the darkness like a prince: the shadows only make his brown eyes appear darker and more like black holes.

“I'm sorry about that,” she says to him in a soft voice. “That was harsh of me.” He shakes his head at her.

“No wrong, no right,” he assures her as he pushes himself up off the seat and into the golden light surrounding them. “It's just—I'm really full right now and that wine's getting to me a little bit, too. I'm not all 'here', if you will.”

She smiles at him but then she turns her head away from him. He runs his fingers through his black curls.

“So I really resemble to a guy you used to like?” he asks her. She looks back at him.

“You do,” she replies. “And even with all of the sirens' behavior, in all of its confusion, all of its complexity, I still see some of him in you.” She knits her eyebrows together and shows him a little smirk.

“You're—actually—you wanna know something?”

He nods his head at a rigorous pace.

“You're actually cuter than him, if I'm honest. Quite a bit cuter than him.”

“Well, if I'm cuter than that guy, where's my cookie?”

She giggles at that. She gives her hair a toss back from her face and then takes another glimpse into the rear view mirror. She returns to him, and this time she shows him the tip of her tongue resting on her bottom lip.

“You know, the two of them are sound asleep right now,” she points out in a soft voice. He widens his eyes at her and shakes his head.

“I ain't doin' that with them here,” he mutters to her. She giggles again, but this time brings in a roll of her eyes.

“What are you sayin'?” she teases him.

“I—didn't say anythin',” he covers himself; each word out of his mouth raises a bit in tone, “did I say something?”

“You said you're not doin' that with them here,” she points out. “Were you suggesting—?” She hesitates with a quizzical look on her face.

“I thought—you were?” Joey's voice trembles at the thought. Vanessa chuckles at him again.

“I wasn't insinuating anything, Mr. Joey,” she says in a singsong tone. “I didn't say anything. You thought it.”

“So you think—you think I did?” he teases her.

“Oh, you boys and your minds in the gutter,” she remarks in an airy voice.

“Not always,” he points out.

“Oh, really?” she challenges him. She runs her tongue around her lips as if she's getting ready to do a job of some sort. “I'm thinking something dark, hollow, cavernous depending on how you look at it, and slightly moist. Depending on your answer will tell me how filthy your mind is.” Joey nibbles on his bottom lip. The car is silent save for Charlie's slight snoring from the back seat.

Even in the darkness, Vanessa's eyes are gleaming in excitement. His bottom lip trembles. She has him now.

“Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?” she asks him, her expression never changing.

“Maybe.”

“Dark—hollow—cavernous—” She pauses.

“Depending on how you look at it,” he quips.

“Depending on how you look at it, of course. And slightly moist. What could it be?”

“Can I stick my tongue in it?” he asks her.

“Maybe. If—entry allows.”

“Can I—put my fingers in it?”

“Again, if entry allows.”

“Can I—” He stops right in his tracks. Maybe this is a game. Maybe that bracelet has something more to it than a mere bewitching courtesy of Marlene. “—put something else in it?”

She flutters her eyelashes at him.

“Now why would you do that?” she teases him.

“'Cause I'm a bad boy and I need punishment, it's a wine bottle isn't it.”

“It is. But that doesn't change the fact about you, Joey.”

“Fact about what about me?”

“You're a quiet boy. Quiet compared to the two of them of course. The quiet ones always have the deepest pits inside their minds.”

He purses his lips together; even in the dim light, she can see the blush crossing his face. She shows him a smirk.

“You were thinking of—my coochie, weren't you?” she teases him. He hunches his shoulders as if he did something bad, to which she shakes her head.

“Oh, I should've known,” she mutters to herself.

“But I didn't say anything, though,” he points out, his voice breaking.

“And now you know what I experienced just a little bit ago,” she declares.

“But you—you thought it, though. You said—you accused me of thinking of—thinking of your—your—”

She chuckles and clasps her hands to the sides of his face.

“You're just—just—you're just too cute!” she coos at him as she pinches his cheeks. “You're just a cute boy.”

“Not with this beak of a nose on my face, no, I'm not.”

She hovers before his face as if she's about to kiss him. But instead, she keeps gazing into his brown eyes.

“So are we gonna—like—go inside or what?”

She peers over her shoulder to the front doors of the airport, and then she returns to him.

“You stay here, baby,” she whispers to him. “I'll take care of this.”

“Okay—Okay, the fact you just called me that.”

She bursts out laughing again and unbuckles her seatbelt. He watches her as she climbs out of the car and into the moist evening. She almost sashays towards the front doors.

“She's got the hots for you, Joey,” Frank murmurs from the back seat. Joey peers behind him to find him reclined back, away from the lights of the parking lot; but even in the shadow, he can see his eyes are wide open.

“How long have you been awake?” Joey asks him.

“Since we got here. And she was totally insinuating it, too.”

“Yeah, I know she was.”

“And yet, you went with it?”

“Absolutely,” Joey replies as he tucks a curl behind his ear. “Dude, she used to be a siren. I'm not takin' any chances, not with Scott and Danny the way they are.”

“It's gonna be an interesting trip over to Portland.”

“Yeah, but as long as we keep up this charade, I think we'll be fine.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My body aches,   
> my body shakes.   
> I try to scream but   
> nothing comes out.”   
> -"Headspin," Butcher Babies

Vanessa had started to drive the three of them back to the bakery when she hesitates there in the heart of Manhattan.

“So where does Scott live?” she asks Joey, who had slouched down in his seat some more to ease the feeling inside of him. He has one hand rested upon his stomach and all she can think about is how they're going to return to the apartment.

“Over in Queens—y'know where that is from here?”

“Not offhand, no.”

“Yer kinda asking—” He shifts his weight there in the seat next to her. “—the wrong guy for that. I don't really know my way 'round here like Pete and Repeat behind us do.”

She pulls over to the side of the street for a better look at him. Once she puts the car in park, Joey lifts himself up for a better look at her.

“Still full?” she asks him with a little twinkle in her eye.

“Very much so—I'm about ready to fall asleep.”

Vanessa giggles at him as the rain returns to New York City. She reaches over to touch his chest and his stomach. Joey raises an eyebrow at her.

“You think you can stay awake for what I want to do with you?” she whispers into his face.

“Maybe—” he stammers as her fingers creep behind the back of his head; she twines her fingers around the roots of his curls. She presses her lips onto his: her touch is soft and gentle, and he tastes like pasta and wine. She on the other hand tastes like atonement and the raw side of life.

“Do it, big boy,” she whispers into his ears so he can hear her over the rain on the roof. “Let's do it—you're so fucking hot.”

Frank and Charlie have dozed off in the back seats behind them, and thus they both know they have to keep things quiet.

“Don't stop 'til I'm screamin' your name, sweet cheeks—” he whispers back into her ear. Vanessa kisses him on the lips again and then she drops her mouth to the base of his neck. She tugs back the collar of his shirt for a nibble right on the collar bone.

Joey thinks about what he had said to Frank earlier, and he knows what to do here.

But she's so gentle with her nibbles: it's that little spike pain right there on the piece of skin, right underneath the bone. He lets his fingers creep around the back of her thigh towards the crotch of her jeans. Even though she's wearing jeans, he can feel her warmth there between her legs.

His slim delicate belly is very full and warm to the touch, much to her pleasure. She lowers her hand from his chest onto his stomach to relish in that soft warmth.

He is in fact like that boy as she soon finds out: just the way he lets her pleasure him with such sweetness. She knows she simply cannot afford to slip back into those old habits: she found the error of her ways and she was put in exile for a reason.

But she lets her hand glide down to the button of his jeans, especially when she feels him fondling the back of her thigh as if he's about to give her a good fingering.

“You can do better than that, you naughty boy,” she whispers into his ear; her voice is breathy and light, but he must resist her. But at the same time, he cannot resist her, especially since he knows he's about to find that soft and wet spot, or at least get close to it with this nice toned Southern fried ass here. She nibbles on him again, this time with a bit more vehemence.

“Tell me—” he grunts out with each nibble on his collar bone, “—is it true that—mmm, down in New Orleans—you guys get all wet—with the hurricanes?”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you, baby,” she teases him; she grins when she feels his fingers right on the piece of fabric making up the crotch. Only a piece of fabric separating her from his fingers.

“All soakin' wet—wet and soft.”

“Lean back and let me grind you, baby,” she commands him.

“But Frankie, though.”

“Let 'em look.” She stops right in her tracks. Joey raises his eyebrows at the sight of her widened eyes and her gaping mouth. He notices she's gazing out his window to the street outside, out through the streaking rain drops on the glass.

“What is it?” he asks her in a hushed voice.

“It's Marlene.” She scrambles off of him and back into the driver's seat. Disoriented, Joey runs his fingers through his black curls but before he can even so much as put on his seat belt, Vanessa bolts forward into the darkness.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“He's gonna get high, high, high,  
>  when he's low, low, low.  
> The fire burns from better days.  
> And she screams 'why, oh, why';  
> I said 'I don't know'.  
> The catastrophic hymns from yesterday of misery.”_  
> -"Misery", Green Day (a song that's also part of the soundtrack for the mirror never lies!)

“Danny? Danny, are you awake?”

Scott sets his hand on Dan's chest. He had lay him down on top of a bed sheet tucked into the crack between the back of the couch and the couch cushions: he lay him there to keep his head elevated. It was difficult given Scott hadn't eaten too much, thus his arms and his wrists shook and quivered when he picked him up and lay him down flat on his back. Scott tucks a lock of hair behind his ear as he looms over Dan's dazed out expression. He shakes him but it does nothing.

“Dan. Dan!”

He spots the edge of the sheet on the floor and lifts it up. He gives it a good tug and nothing. He gives it another tug and falls right down on his butt.

“Ow!” Neither that nor the subsequent thud on the floor wakes up Dan. Something catches Scott's eye and he looks on the floor underneath the couch to find a silvery coin there on the floor boards.

“Ohhh, I've been wondering what happened to that quarter!” He reaches for it, and takes it out of its hiding place, and tucks it into his pocket. Scott scrambles off of the floor and dusts himself off before he thinks of something else to do. He peers into the kitchen behind him and then he returns to Dan still delirious there on the couch. He then doubles back into the kitchen for a small cup straight out of the cupboard, and he fills it with cold water from the faucet.

He returns to Dan and tosses the water onto his face, which jars him awake for a momentary lapse before he falls back asleep again.

“Fuck,” Scott mutters to himself with a shake of his head.

He returns to the kitchen for a drink of water from that same cup in his hand. As he's pouring himself one, he realizes Frank, Joey, and Charlie haven't returned to the apartment as of yet. And it's been well over three hours since they left.

Or so he thinks.

“Wait, what time is it?”

Scott takes a glimpse over at the clock on the oven. Eleven forty five.

He frowns and wonders where they had run off to. It's not like Frank and Charlie don't know the city too well—Joey, he could see it. But not the two of them.

The exception of course is if someone had caught them in the act and took them right out of the bakery.

He takes a swig from his cup before he runs his fingers through his dark hair and doubles back out of the apartment. Dan is still out like a light as Scott leaves the apartment for the cold deserted hallway. He leaves the door ajar even though he knows he's taking a big risk doing that.

But he turns around and heads on down towards the end of the hallway: his hair floats behind him like a frail lace curtain in the wind. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he reaches the end of the hall. This feeling is then followed by a shaky feeling in his wrists and a shaky feeling in his knees and ankles.

He reaches the end and the elevator there and lets out a low whistle. He pushes the button and waits in hopes that the feeling will go away on its own. But it doesn't. And he almost falls ass over teakettle into the elevator. Scott leans back against the railing and presses the lobby button.

The elevator sinks down to the bottom floor, much to the misery of his head spinning no less.

The girls' venom is eating away at his mind.

Scott shakes his head and bolts out of the car once the elevator reaches the bottom of the shaft. He keeps his balance as he makes his way to the front door: he recognizes the sight of the car outside there, posted up by the curb. He rubs his eyes again and pushes open the front door.

From the dim light of the street, he can recognize Frank's head and then the cleft in Charlie's chin. He then spots Joey's thick head of jet black curls, as black as the night around him. He then spots a short haired woman he doesn't recognize on the other side of the car, like she was the one who had driven them home. Scott keeps his head poked out from in between the edge of the door and the door frame.

“Alright, what the hell happened,” he demands from them with a slight sneer upon his face.

“Man, that was quite the adventure tryin' to find the neighborhood again,” Frank says as part of his greeting. “Oh! Scott! This is Vanessa. She used to be a siren.”

“Used to be?”

“Yes, my dear boy,” she tells him in a bold bright voice. “I can help you boys out with getting the sirens at Smell the Magic.”


	14. Chapter 14

Dan lays there on the sofa in Scott's apartment with his eyes closed and his mouth slightly agape. He's flat on his back with his legs outstretched and his feathery mousy brown hair fanned out from underneath his head. Like a little teddy bear missing his mama.

He's experiencing a dream about himself with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles driving in an early model bright fiery red Cadillac. Michelango is driving and Dan himself is seated right next to him there in the front seat. The seat belt is a little too snug on him. But the breeze is blowing through the roots of his hair and the sun is shining on his face and into his luminous eyes to where he actually resembles to a little doll.

He has no idea where they're headed in this car here—something about finding some new comic books or something—and yet he doesn't have a single care in the world.

If there's one thing he'll give the girls at Smell the Magic, it's this dream here. At least, that's his hope.

He even rolls off of the couch, which in turn pushes the couch back towards the wall. He lands on a small pile of actual comic books strewn over the floor underneath him and yet that doesn't wake him. He doesn't even wake up when Scott, Joey, Frank, Charlie, and Vanessa step back into the apartment and out of the rain.

The girls' spell had put him under such a strong comatose state that they don't even jar him awake when they congregate around him and pick him up off the floor and lay him on the couch cushions. Scott almost slips on the comic books, which still doesn't wake up Dan.

Meanwhile, on their end, as soon as they have Dan back on the couch, Vanessa presses her hands to her hips and sighs through her nose.

“Okay, so how're we gonna do this?” asks Frank.

“You said you tried everything, Scott?” she gestures to Scott himself.

“Almost everything,” he explains. “He didn't wake up even when I shook him about or did whatever else with him.”

“Okay. Well, let's see. The four of us are headed out to Portland—when do you guys go back on tour again?”

“Not for a couple of months,” answers Scott as he runs his fingers through his hair. “We've got the summer off and then we start up again—around Labor Day weekend, if I recall correctly?”

“Okay. So plenty of time for us to do what we want to do.” She eyes Joey's chest and then she drops her gaze to his waist and his thighs.

“We've gotta get to Portland and stop the blood from flowing into the rest of the country,” Charlie says in a single breath.

“Do you know at all—” Scott begins with a raise of one eyebrow, “—if Danny—” He doesn't finish that thought, and he doesn't really need to, either.

“It's hard to say,” she confesses in a low voice. “But it's best if the four of us go forth in the morning—and you stay here with him. Or at least until he wakes up.”

“By the way, there are some pastries over on the counter,” Scott nods over to the kitchen. “You know, for tomorrow morning before you guys leave.”

“Are they from—?” Vanessa raises an eyebrow at him.

“No, no,” Scott promises her. “If anything, I got 'em at the little store down the street.”

“Okay, good.”

“Now where we gonna sleep?” asks Frank.

“We can sleep head to toe on the floor of Scott's room, Frankie,” Charlie suggests.

“I've got a futon you guys can sleep on,” Scott points out. “So—y'know. You don't have to sleep on the actual floor.”

“What about me an' Vanessa, though?” Joey asks him.

“That recliner over there—” He gestures over to the leathery recliner in the corner. “—is like the god of recliners. I take naps in it all the time. And then Vanessa, you can sleep head to toe with me if you'd like.”

“I can also be out here when and if Danny wakes up, too,” Joey follows along with a shrug of his slender shoulders. He makes his way over to the recliner and takes a seat, and puts his feet up and pushes it back as far as it can go.

“There you go!” Scott declares with a grin on his face.

“When's the flight leave, by the way?” Joey asks Vanessa as he puts the back of one hand on his forehead.

“Ten thirty,” she replies, “so—I say we bounce outta here early enough.”

Scott and Charlie amble into the bedroom first and then Frank hesitates for a moment with his eye on Joey, who folds his arms across his chest and nestles his head against the head of the chair. The soft leather cradles his slender little body and his toned legs like a mom holding her child.

“You gonna be alright out here, Joe?” he asks him. Joey lifts his head and raises his eyebrows at him.

“Oh, yeah," he assures him with a nod. "This is a really comfy chair, Scott wasn't exaggerating. Could use a blanket, though, it's a li'l chilly in here.”

“I'm gonna see if he has an extra blanket, though,” Vanessa assures him and she makes her way into the next room with Scott and Charlie.

Meanwhile, Frank eyes the pastry on the counter. Breakfast for the next morning.

And yet he knows he won't feel like eating. There's too much happening here.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [this song is weirdly appropriate for this chapter (then again, it's appropriate for this whole trilogy here oof)](https://youtu.be/jTLaowNxVpA)

It's early in the morning as Vanessa and the boys board the plane there in the heart of New York City. Scott was still asleep when they left while Dan had rolled over onto his side, and yet he never woke up upon the closing of the door and the rustling of their coats.

"It's what we've gotta do," Vanessa assured them as she slipped on her coat prior to leaving the apartment.

Frank and Charlie are both looking and feeling exhausted from the restless night before, while Joey is refreshed and relaxed even though he slept in that recliner. Vanessa herself meanwhile looks good and fresh even though she wore just the same clothes as the night before. She gives her hair a soft little toss as she leads the way to customs and then to their terminal.

Frank is right behind her as she hands him his ticket, already stamped and ready to go for the flight out to the west coast. Joey shows her a little crooked grin and a light blush across his face. Charlie bows his head and makes his eyes larger so as to resemble a hungry little kitty cat. The rest of the girls from Smell the Magic are no longer here nor there once they board the plane; much to the surprise of the three guys, Vanessa had bought them seats in first class.

She and Joey are next to one another while Frank and Charlie are right behind them.

The early morning sun filters through the tiny elliptical windows to their left. Golden sunlight shines upon the side of Charlie's face, right on the bridge of his nose and the cleft in his chin. Frank squints at the sight of his silhouette right next to him.

He can't help but think of the girls, of Valentina in particular. He flashes back to when they were in the Northwest before then, and when they first met her. To think she actually spread for him and he slipped his tongue into her lips. He wondered if she had returned to her place there in Lake Oswego; she did live there, after all. There in her place, wrapped in a lacy teddy after having taken a shower and enticing him with her pastries.

He shakes his head. That is in fact her intention: to entice and seduce them into her essence. And Vanessa is here to help them out, and perhaps to help break them out of it. Perhaps it's just his tired mind playing tricks on him. He rakes the lush hair on the side of his head when Sabrina bursts into his mind right then.

They're all out to seduce them and turn their minds against themselves. Bring blood into the mix and you have some kind of twisted grip on their psyches. The blood makes the pastries taste so good which is why the very thought of those two ladies in particular makes him feel a bit nauseous, and the plane preparing for take-off isn't helping matters, either.

"The flight's going to be a few hours," he hears the stewardess tell Charlie. A few hours with that sickly feeling within him. He braces himself and closes his eyes as the plane picks up speed and lifts off of the tarmac. They soar high into the painted morning sky; Frank opens his eyes to behold the sight of the City he knows so well falling away from them. The sunrise paints the primitive wilderness making up upstate New York all fresh shades of orange and yellow.

Meanwhile, in front of them, Joey adjusts the metal bracelet on his right wrist. Vanessa leans back in her seat and closes her eyes. Within mere seconds, she had fallen asleep and thus leaves Joey alone there in the seat in front of Frank and Charlie, alone with his thoughts. He glances down at the bracelet as it shines in the amber morning sunlight. He sighs through his nose, and twirls a lock of lush black hair around one finger, and then he tucks it behind his ear.

Her voice echoes through his mind as though she's standing atop a cliff right over his head. It's so loud, too, like she's saying it right to him instead of just as a voice inside of his mind.

"Eat up, big boy," she beckons him. He can hear her voice so loud and clear inside of his mind, so loud and clear all throughout the crevices of his mind. And he doesn't know if it's Vanessa telling him this or if it's someone else. As far as he knows, Vanessa had fallen asleep: the right side of her bob of black hair is covering the side of her face. He makes out the sensual shape of her full lips and the snub tip of her nose, but her heavy breathing makes it obvious to him.

The plane taxis down the runway and Joey fastens the belt over his waist. Frank and Charlie do the same; the former lets out a low whistle as he struggles to shake off the thought of ingesting blood interwoven in the glaze of one of those donuts.

To become a fat young cannibal against your will while the ladies employing it get away with it all. He shudders at the feeling. Charlie meanwhile asks the stewardess for a cup of coffee. Joey asks one for himself when he hears the voice again.

"A cup of Joey... mmmmm..." He winces once the stewardess steps away for a moment to fetch him and Charlie their cups. It can't be Vanessa, and yet the voice sounds so familiar and so close no less.

"I'm gonna make you sweat, baby boy," she whispers right into his face, even though she's not right in his face.

 _Have I lost my mind?_ he asks himself. He rubs his eyes. _I don't get it. I slept good, though_...

The stewardess returns with a cup of coffee for him plus a packet of sugar and some cream. He peers up at the stewardess and her head of golden blonde hair, her milky pale skin, and the seductive look on her face. He knows those eyes from somewhere. Those lips, too.

She hands the other cup of black coffee to Charlie, right there right behind Vanessa and her bowed head. Joey cranes his neck to make out the dish shaped side profile of her face. So familiar, but where has he seen her?

Meanwhile, Frank is wondering the same thing. She has blonde hair and the shape of her face is a little too round at that, and yet the look in her eyes reminds him of someone. Charlie on the other hand is oblivious to it all: coffee is his Achilles' heel as the look in the stewardess' eye seems to reflect back to Frank. Joey turns to the cup before him and takes a whiff of the surface of the coffee for himself. He gazes out the window to the sight of upstate New York before him: way off in the distance is Syracuse and Lake Ontario.

Forever home to him.

One sugar packet and a little kiss of cream is enough for him, while Charlie takes his black.

Granted it's first class, the coffee is rich and full of flavor, a perfect kick in the ass for the early morning hours. It's going to have to last both him and Charlie for the entire flight, that is until they can find some more there in Portland.


End file.
